Both teams were reeling. El Segundo was bitten by the flu bug and Mira Costa was blindsided by a rivalry loss.

But it was Mira Costa that battled back and the Mustangs used their superior depth to score a 54-38 nonleague victory Saturday night at Mira Costa.

“The one thing we found out this week is we have a little bit more depth than we thought we had coming into league,” Mira Costa coach Jeff Amaral said. “You can’t play with just five guys in the Bay League.

“We’re going to rely on some key contributors off the bench and give them some minutes.”

That wasn’t exactly good news for El Segundo, which relied most heavily on its five starters while waves of Mustangs came off the bench.

After holding a two-point lead at halftime, Mira Costa (12-6) limited the Eagles (6-13) to three points in the third quarter and, with Oliver Mausner getting hot from the outside, the Mustangs won going away.

It was senior night for Mira Costa, which meant junior forward Justin Strings was out of the starting lineup for the first time in his career. But when he arrived, he took over and scored 15 points and pulled down seven rebounds.

Mausner, who hit three 3-pointers in the second half, finished with 14 and guard Cole Feaster scored 12 points and had five assists.

Not that it could wipe away the taste of a close home loss to Redondo from Friday, but the Mustangs emerged encouraged.

“We’re always trying to stack those wins for a playoff seeding,” Amaral said. “It’s a nice bounce-back, and one thing this team does have is bounce-back.”

So the Mustangs have that going for them.

“It’s pretty tough because we had a bad loss last night. It doesn’t erase it at all whatsoever,” Feaster said. “Redondo at home is one we always want. But it puts some confidence back into our game, gives us another good step. We learned a lot from this game and hopefully in our more important Bay League games we’ll be able to execute better.”

El Segundo was without coach Craig Gast and center Brian Hayes, who were out with the flu.

“I think we had the energy,” El Segundo assistant coach Shawn Green said. “Defensively we gave up a lot of second-chance points, and down the stretch they were going so deep and us going only about seven deep.

“We ran and competed and that’s a good basketball team. I’m proud of the guys.”